Scarred
by verumficta
Summary: Merlin & Arthur *Modern!AU*  Blind!Merlin tells Arthur what he sees.


Scarred

Merlin nodded, slow and sad; his breathing ragged as he tries to quiet his sobs. He pushes his knuckles against his lips, trying to stop the loud sobs that refused to be muted. The tears were coming now, he could feel the cool tear tracks that streaked down his heated cheeks.

"I-I'm sorry."

And then he was gone; stumbling out of the apartment.

Arthur's tears were different, his sobs silent, his body silently shaking with the pain and the memories that plagued his mind and heart. He screamed; it resonated and echoed through every shadow of his being, but it fell to silence, it was simply an exhale of breath, really. It seemed so loud, yet it was really nothing more than a whisper in an empty room.

Those eyes that saw nothing, yet everything at the same time flashed past his own. He couldn't escape Merlin, he couldn't forget his dark hair, his pale cheeks; flushed when he kissed those pale, pink lips; that seemed to mold perfectly together with his own.

He wonders what Merlin thinks about when he thinks of him. His voice? The feel of Arthur's skin on his? The pressure of their lips? He didn't understand it. He doesn't understand _anything_ about Merlin. One thing he did know though, that he was _certain _of; Merlin is too good for him.

Arthur throws the bright red paint at the masterpiece that his love had done, he scratches at the wall, the violent red mixing with the other colors and collecting under his nails; making his hands look obscene. He leans against the wall, slamming his fist into his perfect, painted face on the wall.

He scratches at his own face, tearing at the scar that ran across his eye. He stares at his ruined face on the wall and sobs, collapsing against it, the wet paint leaving pools of dark red against his white shirt. Arthur covers his face with his hands, trying to hide himself from the world, hide his broken, shattered soul that reflected on his face.

He misses Merlin.

With his loud obnoxious jokes about anything and everything; including his own blindness. Arthur felt like he was torn apart inside by his love for Merlin, and his hate for himself. The first was new, fresh and so strong sometimes it threatened to drown Arthur, not that he had any complaints. The other was an old feeling, full of bitterness that had come from festering in his heart and soul his entire life.

_He doesn't know anything,_ Arthur sobs as he tugs at his hair. How could Merlin possibly know about the scar that ran through Arthur's face? He couldn't see him, and Arthur had certainly never told him about it. So there was absolutely no reason to be mad at him, a part of him reasoned. But the pain he felt when he had come home, to _their _home they had just bought, and saw his love painting his face; before he became damaged.

Before his mother died.

Before a part of him and his father followed.

It was so long ago, yet he remembered it so clearly. The rain pounding on the window just as it did now, the lightning and thunder clashing and screaming as if they were waging a war. The car had skidded, Arthur was driving; he just got his license actually but there was a flash. He got scared, so _scared_, he wanted to pull over and stop, but Uther had insisted he go on.

"Pendragon men do not get scared." He had said.

He was wrong.

Arthur was scared when the glass shattered and he felt the pain sink in and seem to stab right through him and out on the other side. He was scared when he awoke, to find no one at his bedside. He was scared when they buried his mother. He was scared when Uther stopped coming home. He's been scared ever since.

He was scared now.

"Arthur?"

He gasps, swiping at the tears on his cheeks; ashamed, before he realizes that Merlin wouldn't care. Not that he couldn't see them, but merely because Merlin never looked down at tears, he fought them, sure, but when they had to come, when it was inevitable; he let them and embraced them.

Merlin feels his way over, the incessant tapping of his cane filling the air. He trips over Arthur's foot, but he catches him as he falls; pulling Merlin to him, holding him as tight as he could. Merlin laughs. "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"

Arthur simply nods into his hair, his lips mouthing at the side of Merlin's cheek.

Merlin pulls away only to press closer to Arthur, his palms cupped his tear stained cheeks. "What did I do wrong?" Merlin feels the dried paint in his lover's hair, on his palms. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what he had done. He runs a shaking hand over the wall behind him, feeling the scratches running deep through the painting, he feels the clumps of the new paint on what used to be a smooth surface.

"You painted what you want to see. What you _think _I look like. I-I don't look like that anymore, Mer." Arthur leans his head on Merlin's shoulder, and he strokes the crying man's hair, feeling the soft mess beneath his fingers, the heated skin of his cheeks as tears spilled over.

Merlin leans over and whispers into his love's ear.

"I painted what you are to me. I paint you from what I see inside you; the beautiful person you are inside and out_._ The person I have the brilliant luck of _seeing, _of _knowing, _of _loving, _Arthur. I'm just painting you."

His love holds him tighter, his breath warm against his neck. "I'm broken, Merlin. _Scarred. _You deserve more than someone so shattered. You deserve someone whole." Merlin shushes his world as he holds him close, never wanting to leave him again.

"Together we're whole. _Unbreakable_."


End file.
